Sudhir Kumar Tyagi^1,2,3, Yinghui Zhou¹ and Jincan Chen^1,*

¹ Department of Physics, Xiamen University, Xiamen 361005, People's Republic of China.
² Centre for Energy Studies, Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi New Delhi 110016, India.
³ E-mail: [email protected]
^*The corresponding author Tel: +86-592-218-9426, Fax: +86-592-218-9426, E-mail: [email protected]

Received: 28 January 2004 / Accepted: 8 March 2004 / Published: 17 March 2004

Abstract: An irreversible cycle model of a Braysson heat engine operating between two heat reservoirs is used to investigate the thermoeconomic performance of the cycle affected by the finite-rate heat transfer between the working fluid and the heat reservoirs, heat leak loss from the heat source to the ambient and the irreversibility within the cycle. The thermoeconomic objective function, defined as the total cost per unit power output, is minimized with respect to the cycle temperatures along with the isobaric temperature ratio for a given set of operating parameters. The objective function is found to be an increasing function of the internal irreversibility parameter, economic parameters and the isobaric temperature ratio. On the other hand, there exist the optimal values of the state point temperatures, power output and thermal efficiency at which the objective function attains its minimum for a typical set of operating parameters. Moreover, the objective function and the corresponding power output are also plotted against the state point temperature and thermal efficiency for a different set of operating parameters. The optimally operating regions of these important parameters in the cycle are also determined. The results obtained here may provide some useful criteria for the optimal design and performance improvements, from the point of view of economics as well as from the point of view of thermodynamics of an irreversible Braysson heat engine cycle and other similar cycles as well.

Keywords: Braysson heat engine; thermoeconomic objective function; power output; milti-irreversibilities; thermal efficiency; optimally operating region; optimum criterion.